Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Modern Han Chinese consists of about 412 syllables [1] in 5 tones, so homophones abound and most non-Han words have multiple possible transcriptions. This is particularly true since Chinese is written as monosyllabic logograms, and consonant clusters foreign to Chinese must be broken into their constituent sounds (or omitted), despite being thought of as a single unit in their original language.
Written Chinese is a writing system that uses Chinese characters and other symbols to represent the Chinese languages. Chinese characters do not directly represent pronunciation, unlike letters in an alphabet or syllabograms in a syllabary .
Chinese characters [a] are logographs used to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represent the only one that has remained in continuous use. Over a documented history spanning more than three millennia, the ...
Chinese people often address professionals in formal situations by their occupational titles. These titles can either follow the surname (or full name) of the person in reference, or it can stand alone either as a form of address or if the person being referred to is unambiguous without the added surname.
Kanbun, literally "Chinese writing," refers to a genre of techniques for making Chinese texts read like Japanese, or for writing in a way imitative of Chinese. For a Japanese, neither of these tasks could be accomplished easily because of the two languages' different structures. As I have mentioned, Chinese is an isolating language.
In China, letters of the English alphabet are pronounced somewhat differently because they have been adapted to the phonetics (i.e. the syllable structure) of the Chinese language. The knowledge of this spelling may be useful when spelling Western names, especially over the phone, as one may not be understood if the letters are pronounced as ...
Chinese honorifics (Chinese: 敬語; pinyin: Jìngyǔ) and honorific language are words, word constructs, and expressions in the Chinese language that convey self-deprecation, social respect, politeness, or deference. [1] Once ubiquitously employed in ancient China, a large percent has fallen out of use in the contemporary Chinese lexicon.
The line breaking rules in East Asian languages specify how to wrap East Asian Language text such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.Certain characters in those languages should not come at the end of a line, certain characters should not come at the start of a line, and some characters should never be split up across two lines.